Introduction

In this video we’ll be going over how to create a key part of your business –  your business plan.

This will be primarily for a nursery.  Though, these instructions will be helpful for whatever business you set up.

If you are new here a little info on myself is I currently run a nursery in London and this channel is set up by myself to help people open their own nursery.  This is primarily done through the course of open your nursery in just six months without a massive budget which teaches the key steps needed to open your own nursery.

If you haven’t already and you do want to open your own nursery make sure you hit that subscribe button and notification bell I post regular videos to help teach you how to open up.

Also, if at any point you’re enjoying this video and want to see more do not forget to hit that like button and don’t hesitate to comment if you have any questions.

Content

So, today we will be going over how to write a business plan.

We will go over

1. the key sections to include
2. what to put in each section
3. at the end I will also go over some mistakes that many people make when writing a business plan so you don’t make them too

I’ve also attached a free business plan template which you can download by clicking the link here.

Now the thought of starting a nursery is an exciting time for most people I love seeing the joy and excitement when people come to me and ask me to help them set up.

Though, how to write a business plan is one of the first things I tell them to get started doing and how to write a business plan for a nursery is one of the first things you should be doing too.

Though, as you are watching this video you are off to a good start.  Writing your business plan yourself or with guidance like what you get on the full course gives you a deep understanding of your business and what it will take to make your nursery to be successful.

This is why I would never suggest paying someone to write a business plan for you.

Why write a business plan?

• Writing business plan helps to give you a clear statement of your nursery’s mission and vision
• It sets values that you can lean upon and helps to steer you through tough times
• It sets a benchmark you can use to track your progress and performance
• It gives analysis of your nursery industry including opportunities and threats
• It gives you an insight into your potential customer and what your parents may want
• It lets you know how much you will make as well as your likely costs and is essential if you hope to get outside funding

A business plan also helps to:

• Reduce the likelihood of your cash running out
• Reduce the likelihood of you missing projections
• Prevent you losing customers due to poor quality
• Reduce the likelihood of becoming overwhelmed by too many tasks or options
• Prevent you from going bankrupt because you don’t have a plan of how to make money

Always remember time spent putting together a good business plan is always time well spent.  The more time you spend the better prepared you’ll be.

Without writing down your goals and plans, after a while you’ll end up forgetting them or they’ll become blurred in your mind you’ll end up being too focused on actually running your business you forget all the amazing plans you had at the start of opening your nursery.  Like opening that community space for parents.

By writing it down in this document it enables you to go back and remember what you planned.

All this is why writing a business plan is so important.  You wouldn’t go on a journey to a place you don’t know without knowing how to get there.  Without planning the route, knowing how long it will take, whether you need to make stops or bring snacks etc so don’t do that with your business.

You have the destination to open your own nursery you just need to plan how to get there and I personally like to think of the open the nursery course works as your google maps to get you to that destination.

What is a business plan?

A business plan is simply put a document that contains a review of your business and defines your business objectives.

As mentioned, it is essential if you ever want to get outside finances like a business loan or equity funding but even if you don’t it is so important to help you understand your business.

Put simply a business plan is a plan of what your goals are for your nursery and how you plan to accomplish them.

It’s basically a blueprint to accomplish your goals.

What do you put in your business plan?

Your business plan is made up of many different sections and is up to you what you put into it.

Some business plans can be 10 pages where some can be just a couple.

Now we’ll go through different sections you can include.  You can choose which ones you want to put in and how detailed you want to go into each section.

I will quickly list each section first and then go into more detail later on in the video the

1. The executive summary – the first section is the executive summary this is a summary of the key points in your business plan it can include key information like your profit and loss it should be short and concise and convey why your nursery is viable and why it will be successful you should include any experience you’ve had in childcare here
2. Company overview – the second section is the company overview this is where you describe your company and your ethos including your mission and vision statement a description of your values services and ways you are unique and what opportunities you plan to seize
3. Business environment – this section analyses your local nursery industry giving descriptions of direct and potential competitors and gives a close look at your customers example their age employment status and what they might want from a nursery
4. Company description – here you include information about your staff structure the different services you offer example part-time full-time whether you do drop-offs your marketing potential etc one tip here though is when describing the roles in your business it’s good to define the different roles you will be playing in the business too for example if you do marketing accounting etc at the beginning you’re likely to be doing everything all the marketing accounting etc by having the roles separated it makes it easier for you to hire people to replace you when you do expand and potentially when you want to step away from the nursery and have someone run it for you
5. Company strategy – which puts your strategy going forward for the company then you have a
6. Marketing plan – where you describe how you plan to reach parents and how you make sales and develop loyal customers
7. Financial review – which outlines your current finances as well as what you expect your income and expenditure to be it will also include financial statements like your balance sheets and cash flow statements next your action plan where you detail steps involved in implementing your business plan
8. Appendix – the final section you include is your appendix in this section just put any information to support your business plan it may include reports legal documents etc it’s just used to justify some of the things you have put in the business plan and gives a more rounded understanding of your business plan

The goal of your business plan is to answer these questions:

• Does a nursery have a good chance of starting and succeeding?
• How much money will the business need to get up and running?
• Who are the customers?
• How will you reach them?
• Why parents will choose you over your competitors?

It should also help you learn whether you’re prepared to run the nursery.  How you can turn your passion for children into a profitable business.  What resources you will need and how much you should and can charge.

So, where do you start?

We will go into what to put into each section in a minute but remember if you want a free business plan template you can get access to one by clicking the link here.

When starting your business plan I always say start with what you know.

Firstly, start by creating the sections mentioned above.

Then, start by adding to your executive summary and writing about your experience in child care for example how many years experience you have, any qualifications you have and why you got into child care or why you want to open and start your own nursery.

Also, describe what sort of nursery you want to create if you don’t have any childcare experience you can list areas that will make you suitable to run the nursery for example any business experience you have or any support that you will have to help you with the child care side.

Once you’ve done this you can begin completing the following sections in any order you wish.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

So, firstly your executive summary.

As well as putting your experience you may also want to include what you plan to do different than other nurseries.

Your mission statement –  basically why you want to open some key objectives for the first few years for example to be profitable by the end of year one to run at near capacity by the end of year two etc

Anything you believe will make you successful – are you already known to your local community will you offer parents something that other nurseries don’t. Will you market well.

Your organization structure –  are you running the nursery by yourself will you have a partner will you hire a manager

Any other relevant experience you may have to help you run your business

Are there opportunities you are looking to capitalize on for example the expected rise in nursery demand post covid-19

Where you will be located – what demand is like there.  Who your typical customers are, are they a two parent working household who may need full-time childcare because of this are they using government funding and how many of these people are in your area

You can list your competition – are they private nurseries, school nurseries, childminders etc and how many are in your area

What are your growth plans how many children do you plan to have when you open up and how much you expect per month remember to be conservative with your predictions be as realistic as possible.  Do not over predict!

You may briefly put some of your expenses and losses and any charts you create that show your profit for the first few years though remember that this section is a summary and overview of things you would put elsewhere into your business plan so you don’t need to go into depth on all these points.

COMPANY OVERVIEW

The other section is your company overview.

Here you should list what you will be doing and what will support the services you give.

It should also include:

• your start-up cost and how this will be funded
• information on your building for example the size and location and any plans you have to expand
• the setup of your business. Are you going to be a company partnership sole trader
• who else will be involved and supporting you in this business

BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT

Next you go onto your business environment.

In this section you’ll have your competition analysis.

In the competition analysis you will be evaluating what other options are available for parents in your area for example are they mostly chain nurseries or are they small privately owned nurseries, home-based childcare or childminders or do parents mostly leave children staying at home with other family members or are most parents not working.

Then you give some of the benefits and negatives of these alternatives, to help you to understand where you can stand out.

Will you differ from any of the competition if so how?

It’s good to also list specific competitors of around three or four and write down key information about them for example their size, their price, their location, their Ofsted grade etc.

We also research demand in your area though for support in this I have done a video and it is also the first section on the full course which I mentioned earlier.

• List how your market is segmented example how many full-time working couples are there needing full time to care versus part-time workers needing shorter shifts or people just using the government funding hours
• Where are your parents located – what distance are they from the nursery are they traveling in from another area to drop off before going to work or are they local to you
• Find out how many under fives are in your area how many nurseries are in your area
• Give a brief description of how you will target customers example referrals websites open days though this will mostly be covered in the marketing section
• What is the growth rate in your area.  Are there a lot more new parents coming in for example with the new builds that are being built will there be an increase in demand in your area which is likely after covid-19
• Then you can add your strength weakness opportunity and threat analysis

A quick note though as you start writing your business plan and start working through it by yourself you’ll become aware of the fact that you don’t know the answers to a lot of these questions and you won’t have all these things figured out yet.  You may even be realizing that now but I want to reassure you that it’s completely normal and do not get overwhelmed by this.

This is supposed to happen, one of the main purposes of a business plan is to figure out the things that you are not aware of.  It helps you become more aware of the things that you haven’t thought about or haven’t figured out yet or you just don’t know because only once you’re aware of what you don’t know you’ll be able to figure out these things and even if you are struggling to figure out these things there’s plenty support available through the courses through the Facebook groups even from myself or just by searching online so there’s no excuse to get started writing your business plan straight away just because you don’t know everything yet.

Your business plan helps you to figure this out.

Your business plan helps you to figure out what you don’t know so that you know, you know.

COMPANY DESCRIPTION

Onto the next section of your business plan which is the company description.

Here you list:

• your staffing structure – how many and what employers you plan to hire and the costs of this. This will form part of your personnel plan if you already have some staff you can list what experience they have and why they are suitable you should also put in when you will hire new staff and how you will recruit them
• list the services you offer – the opening closing times, whether you’re all year or term time only, whether you do school drop-offs whether you are part-time or full-time etc list how you would teach are you going to be on the Montessori type nursery, learning through play etc
• what is your focus are you trying to be a fun nursery where children learn through play or are you more regimented

COMPANY STRATEGY

The next section will be a company strategy.

You will answer questions like

• what is your ethos or your value proposition? – just use your swot analysis to determine this
• where will you position yourself in the market? – are you going to be a premium provider a cheaper provider or somewhere in between
• what will you use to differentiate yourselves
• you can briefly describe your marketing strategy here too
• list how much you will charge
• what your sales strategy and forecast will be here you’ll put a detailed sales forecast stating how many new full-time or part-time children you expect on the opening and then per week as well as how much income you will generate
• also list when you are likely to have more children enrol or leave for example in summer you’re likely to lose a few whereas at beginning of terms you likely have a lot more inquiries
• you can also list what other businesses you’d like to align your nursery with for example you may want to work with local schools or businesses to help with your marketing

MARKETING PLAN

Which leads on to the marketing plan.

I’ll be doing a video on how to market a nursery in the next couple weeks which will help with this section.

But in this section we’ll include:

• what marketing materials you may want to create for example flyers brochures advertising boards etc
• you will create a marketing strategy – so stating when and where you will do your marketing writing down when you’ll hand out flyers when you plan your open day etc
• you’ll list how you utilize your website and social media and state whether you’ll create and run these yourself

FINANCIAL REVIEW

This is basically how you will generate money.

Which will come from signing children up.  You may have other ways to generate income as well you might want to rent out part of your building you might want to do stay and play sessions etc.

Create your key financial tables here as well including your profit and loss accounts, balance sheets, break-even analysis, cash flow forecasts and business ratios.

ACTION PLAN

One of the final sections is to create your action plan.

Set milestones of when you want to complete certain things for example when do you plan to complete your business plan, when do you plan to apply for funding, when do you plan to register with Ofsted, when do you want to get your building.

Answer those sort of questions.

APPENDIX

Finally, your appendix.

Use this section to explain some of the things you’ve put into your business plan like how have you come up with some of the sales figures you’ve put in.

That is generally all that is needed to complete your business plan you can add or leave out sections to suit your needs.

Though, I forgot to add in when describing your service write down your primary service and then list the result and the impact of this for example if you was a cleaner your service would be cleaning the house the result would be the customer gets a clean house but the impact is the fact that one the customer hasn’t had to clean it themselves and the reduction of stress of actually having a clean home.  We all know how much clearer your mind is from having a clean home.

So, do that with your service too.

Your service is providing child care for children but what is the result for the child and the parent and what is the impact.

Also, in terms of projections you can simply just put your goals here for example your one year goal your three year goal and and five year goals.

Final advice when writing your business plan make sure that it is as clear and concise as possible.  Try to reduce any waffle and always be trying to answer the question what if in every part of your plan. As this is what your reader will be doing.

For example if you plan on open day you might say you get 10 sign ups from that, but what if it doesn’t happen.  If you can answer the question before it even asks that’s the best way to show your reader whether it be a bank or other individual that you are serious, realistic and can adapt to any situation thrown at you.

So, that’s what you need to put in the business plan.

NOW if after writing your business plan you stopped looking at it after you opened your nursery you didn’t write a good business plan! You merely wrote a wish list.

I’ll say it again – if after open your nursery you don’t continuously need to look back at your business plan you didn’t write a good business plan.

You should be constantly referring back to your plan to see if you’ve met your goals and to find out what you need to do next.

It should be your guide and be working with you as you go about your day-to-day running of your business.

That’s why the action plan is one of the most important parts of your business plan you should write in your goals and what you want to achieve by for example week one, week two, month one, month three, month six, month nine etc etc etc for the length of your business and be adding to that as you go through your business.

MISTAKES PEOPLE MAKE WRITING THEIR BUSINESS PLAN

Now some mistakes that people make when writing a business plan which I said I’ll list at the start of this video are

1] They don’t take time out to write it

Time out away from the noise of life.  I know most of you are working moms or fathers so it’s difficult to take a time out for yourself away from work commitments away from children and or your family but it is so important.

You need time to sit and really think and research your plan and course of action.

It’s mostly in these times of solitude that you come up with your best ideas. 

I personally like to take time bring my laptop in my garden and just think!  Sometimes, I just sit there and wait for inspiration I believe my inspiration comes from God but wherever and whatever you get your inspiration from you need that time to yourself whereby you can plan.

This time is so crucial to the success of your nursery.  So make sure you find time to do this away from the noise.

2] another mistake people make is to overestimate what they will do in their projections or their goals

I’ve had people come to me saying oh I’m gonna sell all my nursing places within the first six months.  Which is great to plan for this and your marketing plan will hopefully enable you to do this and this has always been a goal.

But, is it realistic?

How are you going to do this?

Most nurseries don’t reach their full capacity until at least and I say at least nine months to a year so you have to think about this.  Enrolment may be slow at the start, as you build up people’s trust and they can see children already in the nursery.

That’s why you need to be realistic and do not overestimate.

When you start overestimating you stop being realistic with your business plan and it goes back to being just a wish list instead of goals.

3] another mistake people make is not planning alongside the calendar

When writing your goals and targets you need to do this alongside your calendar.

Have a month for your plan to start for example in July and work on from there there’s no point saying you’re going to have 30 children by the end of three months if you don’t know what month that falls on.

If it’s around September which is one of the highest months for enrolment then you may surpass that but if it’s around July then it may prove more difficult.

Even when you’re planning your marketing, like, if you’re planning on open day for when you start, you need to think about what month it might fall in.  If you open around April you might want to have an Easter theme for the open day.  If it’s December you might want to have it inside rather than outside.

You have to plan alongside your calendar!

It’s surprising but very few people do this.

4] another mistake people do is not learning new skills 

This doesn’t necessarily have to go in your business plan, but it can in the action plan section.

You do need to be planning how you can grow yourself as well as your business.  If after year one, you have the same knowledge and skills as when you started you’re failing yourself. 

No matter what age you are, and I work with all ages from the youngest being around 24 to over 60s all looking to open their a nursery, and one thing I stress is you need to be constantly improving yourself and your knowledge.

Get yourself on training whether that be learning new behaviour management skills, dealing with bias in the nursery or learning business management skills like marketing you need to be constantly growing. Looking at what training or courses you’ll be going on to next at whatever period you want for example at the beginning of each year you need to be thinking what skills do I need to make my nursery more environmentally friendly, what skills do I need to sell more nursery places, what skills do I need in order to increase my nursery presence online. 

No matter what the skill is you should write down at least three to five you want to learn and figure out how you can do that whether that’s by going on training, enrolling on courses, buying a book, watching YouTube videos.

You need to find out how to achieve those skills in order to keep growing.  Otherwise, you would just be in the same situation you was at the start of the year or the year before.

5] the final mistake people have and I know a lot of you are planning to is keeping your business and your business plan a secret and that letting small thinkers deflate you

I want to remind you if you are planning to open a nursery or planning to open your own business, no matter what it is you’re about to go on a journey and it’s going to be a difficult one.  You’re about to create your own business, you’re going to be the main responsibility for a bunch of young children and you’ll be responsible for other people’s livelihoods in terms of employing staff.

It’s not a small task and it’s not going to be an easy one, it’s a big responsibility but the rewards are there.

I feel blessed to be in the position that I am having gone through the process and now flourishing.

However, there were many people doubting me when I started I was youngish when I set out to open my own nursery at the age of 21 22 and had never worked in a nursery and being male people always gave me a funny look asking why I want to work at children.

But, if I had let them discourage me I would never be in the position I am now.

People will always try to insert their negative or small mindset onto you but you always have to remember why you’re doing it and do not let them deflate you.

Those small thinkers aren’t just the people that will be negative though.

They can be those people who will be like oh that won’t work or you can’t do that or parents won’t like that but they are also the people that just say yeah that’s amazing that’s great and nothing else as this isn’t helpful either.

You need to be sharing your business plan with people that can critique you and give feedback.

They ask you questions like are you sure about this maybe you could have wrote it like this etc and even if they don’t have nursery knowledge they can hold you to account.  So when you say I’m going to visit five nurseries by the 18th they’re calling you on the 19th asking how the viewings went and whether you managed to do them.

These are the people you need to be sharing your business plan with that’s why I’m really trying to build a community of like-minded individuals in the Facebook groups who can support each other and hold each other to account but I do need more of you to be willing to support each other.

So, make sure you join the Facebook group linked here

I know a lot of people are scared to share their business plans because of negativity they get or because they’re worried someone might steal the idea but what happens when you don’t tell people your plans?  The pressure’s off it’s easier to miss targets or not even get started. There’s no accountability that’s why I say don’t keep it a secret.

Now, you don’t have to share every part with everyone but by telling people it forces you to take it more seriously.  You’ll find people who will encourage you and push you. 

Some people might even support you with ideas that you hadn’t thought about and even when you hit hurdles you can share that burden and offload some of that burden.

As it says in the bible, two are better than one as when one fails your friend can lift you up.

So don’t keep it a secret share with others and they can hold you accountable and support you.

Conclusion

So, that’s why you need to write a business plan, how to write it, what to include and some mistakes to avoid.

Now you know this, it’s down to you you have to take action and get this done.

Start by downloading the free template here  and get started writing your business plan straight away if you get stuck at any point you can always come back to this video.

Also, if you found any of this information useful make sure to hit the like button and if you do plan on opening your own nursery do it with support by enrolling on the course open a nursery in just six months without a massive budget on this course you will learn everything you need to know in order to open your own nursery.  You will:

1. start off by researching your chosen area to make sure there is sufficient demand, in order to make your nursery successful
2. you’ll then start by looking for a building – learning how to find your building and what legal requirements you need to stick to then
3. you will learn about running the business –  how to pay tax register the sole trader partnership or company as well as how to secure funding and write a business plan
4. next you’ll learn how to do HMRC – recruit and pay staff including ratio requirements
5. then you learn how to register with Ofsted
6. Finally learn how to market to children – including creating your own website and learning about search engine optimization

So if you need support in any of this make sure you enrol.

At the moment the course is already discounted from £997 to just £249.99 but you can get an extra 10% off using discount code youtube1.

It gives you lifetime access as well, so if you do plan to open nursery enrol now before this discount expires.

Just click the link here

On my next video we’ll be learning about how to market at your nursery in order to sell places fast so make sure to subscribe to find out when this comes out.

I again want to thank you for watching I know this has been a bit of a longer video but I hope it’s been useful we’ve covered a lot but don’t forget download your free business plan template  and I wish you all the best in your journey and dream of opening your own nursery God bless and I’ll see you on the next video